BlankGoogle Home can now tell who's talking Edward C. Baig, USA TODAY
Among the first things you might ask the cloud-based voice activated Google
Assistant
inside Google Home is to 'tell me about my day. Google Assistant will'then
rattle off the local weather, upcoming appointments'and connect you to preferred
news sources. Until now, though, the standalone artificial intelligence-infused
$129 speaker ' Google's rival to Amazon's popular Alexa voice-based Echo
speaker ' couldn't distinguish your voice from that of a spouse, partner or
roommate. Heck, they want to hear about their day too. Google began rolling
out a feature this week to remedy the situation in households with a shared
Google Home unit: the ability for up to six people to connect their account
to that unit and, following a brief training period, have the speaker recognize
each person's voice independently. Google Home can then deliver their commute
times, calendars, playlists'and so on 'not yours. Related: It's a welcome
feature that addresses a potential nuisance ' and is a stunt Alexa can't yet
pull off on Echo devices, though 'Amazon no doubt is at work trying. Amazon
Echo
(Photo: Amazon) You'll need the latest Google Home app to get started.
Then, look for a card that says 'multi-user is available' and if you can't find
it, click the icon in the upper right to locate your connected devices,
and make sure to link your account. Google asks you to train your voice by
saying the phrases, 'OK'Google' and 'Hey Google' twice each. The way Google
explains it, the phrases are analyzed by a neural network that'can detect
certain characteristics of each voice. From then on, any time you say
"OK'Google"
or "Hey Google" to your Google Home, the neural network will compare the sound
of your voice to its previous analysis to determine whether'it is you speaking
or not, a comparison Google claims takes place in a matter of milliseconds.
A'few things to keep in mind: If you have more than one Google Home in your
house, you'll have to set up each one independently even if you share the same
network; voice training is local to the device. The feature doesn't work
on smartphones that incorporate the Google Assistant either, though phones of
course are more personal anyway. Google Home in the kitchen (Photo: Google)
Google also adds that the feature is not available for kids under 13. The
feature rollout comes to the U.S. first and will expand to the U.K. in coming
months, Google says.